This is a traditional endowment plan that pays the sum assured plus any accrued bonuses on death or on maturity.

What do you get?

On maturity, provided all due premiums have been paid, you will get the sum assured along with guaranteed additions and reversionary and terminal bonuses. Depending upon the performance of the investment fund, known as the participating lifeholder’s fund, the company may declare an annual bonus. This bonus is a percentage of the sum assured and once declared gets guaranteed. Over and above this, the company may declare a terminal bonus at the time of maturity.

On death, the same benefits will be given to the nominee. The company may also pay an interim bonus in case the policyholder death occurs before the next due bonus.

Photo: Bloomberg

What’s special?

The guaranteed additions will be applicable in the first five years of the policy tenor. This guaranteed addition is ₹ 50 per ₹ 1,000 of sum assured. So if your sum assured is ₹ 10 lakh, you will get a guaranteed addition of ₹ 50,000 every year bumping up your sum assured to ₹ 12.5 lakh in five years.

Subsequently, you will get an additional bonus. However, this bonus will be solely at the discretion of the insurer.

You get a rebate in premium for opting for a sum assured of ₹ 10 lakh or more. For a sum assured up to ₹ 24.99 lakh, the rebate in premium will be ₹ 1 per ₹ 1,000 of the sum assured. For a sum assured of above ₹ 25 lakh, the premium is ₹ 2 per ₹ 1,000 sum assured.

Mint Money take

The costs are not known in this policy since it is a traditional plan. However, one can get a sense by looking at the guaranteed payouts. Take the case of a 30-year-old opting for a sum assured of ₹ 10 lakh for 20 years. He will need to pay an annual premium of ₹ 53,870. Including the guaranteed payout, the maturity benefit will come to ₹ 12.5 lakh or a return of just 1.39%. However, since this plan invests largely in debt, we looked at the return assuming a bonus return of 6%. In this case, the net yield came to 3.90%.

The guaranteed payouts are not much to write home about. You are better off buying a term plan and investing the difference in a Public Provident Fund or diversified equity mutual funds.